PyData London with Ian Ozsvald and Emlyn Clay - Episode 48

March 12, 2016

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Summary

Ian Ozsvald and Emlyn Clay are co-chairs of the London chapter of the PyData organization. In this episode we talked to them about their experience managing the PyData conference and meetup, what the PyData organization does, and their thoughts on using Python for data analytics in their work.

Brief Introduction

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Your hosts as usual are Tobias Macey and Chris Patti

Today we are interviewing Ian Ozsvald and Emlyn Clay about their work with PyData London, a group within the PyData organization. PyData London represents the largest Python group in London at ~2850 members, they hold regular monthly meetups for ~200 members at AHL near Bank and a yearly conference for around ~300 members. Last year, they and their sponsors raised over £26,000 to sponsor the development of core numerical libraries in Python.

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Interview

Introductions

How did you get introduced to Python? – Chris

What is the PyData organization, how does PyData London fit into it and what is your relationship with it? – Tobias

In what ways does a PyData conference differ from a PyCon? – Tobias

Does PyData do anything in particular to encourage users from disciplines that might not be aware of how much our community has to offer to choose the Python suite of data analysis tools? – Chris

You have both spent a good portion of your careers using Python for working with and analyzing data from various domains. How has that experience evolved over the past several years as newer tools have become available? – Tobias

For someone who is just getting started in the data analytics space, what advice can you give? – Tobias

How can conferences like PyData help strengthen the bonds and synergies between the Python software community and the sciences? – Chris

There are a number of different subtopics within the blanket categorization of data science. Is it difficult to balance the subject matter in PyData conferences and meetups to keep members of the audience from being alienated? – Tobias

Data science is a young field and we’ve yet to see lots of examples of the successful use of data. How are London-based companies using data with Python? – Ian

Is there a Python data science library you think needs a little love? – Emlyn